Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/265

 England, and whom he married, against the wishes of his friends, 17 Sept. 1791 [see ].

In 1793 he succeeded his father as marine-painter to the king, and was also appointed marine draughtsman to the admiralty. In the latter capacity he was frequently employed in making sketches of the harbours on the enemy's coast, and had a vessel appointed for his service, receiving 100l. a month when on duty. He also contributed regularly (chiefly shipping and marine subjects) to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy till 1808. In 1801 he published a translation of ‘The Little Sea-torch,’ a guide for coasting ships, illustrated by a large number of coloured aquatints, and in 1805 his ‘Liber Nauticus,’ or instructor in the art of marine-drawing.

He saved a good deal of money, but was ruined by the intrigues and extravagance of his wife. He was separated from her (by deed) in 1804, and in 1808 went to Edinburgh to escape the persecutions to which he was still subjected from her, ceasing to contribute to the Royal Academy for seven years. But it was of no avail; he was arrested and thrown into prison, and, the same round of persecutions continuing, he was driven to make an attempt at suicide, which was happily frustrated. The failure of the speculation for building the Coburg Theatre, in which he had invested 2,000l. of his savings, obliged him to take advantage of the Insolvent Act. He exhibited again at the Royal Academy in 1817, and occasionally exhibited there and elsewhere till his death; but his wife's pretensions to be Princess Olive of Cumberland, though they received no support from him, had deprived him of the royal favour, which he never regained. Teaching now became his chief occupation and support. Broken in spirit and health, he laboured on in prison till he became seriously ill with a tumour. He was moved into the rules of the king's bench, but the removal hastened his death, which took place on 28 Dec. 1825. In his will he declared his wife's pretensions to be wholly without foundation. He was buried beside his father. He was a clever artist, and his pictures have lasted much better than his father's.

Some watercolour drawings by John Thomas Serres, and a ‘View of the Lighthouse in the Bay of Dublin, with His Majesty's Yacht, Dorset,’ in oils, dated 1788, are in the South Kensington Museum.

His younger brother, Dominic, landscape-painter and drawing-master, exhibited nine works at the Royal Academy between 1778 and 1804, but late in life fell into a hopeless despondency, lost his employment, and was supported by his brother.

[An exculpatory memoir by ‘A Friend,’ 1826; Redgrave's Dict.; Graves's (Algernon) Dict.; Redgraves' Century; Cat. of Oil Pictures in South Kensington Museum.]

 SERRES, OLIVIA (1772–1834), calling herself the Princess Olive of Cumberland, born at Warwick, 3 April 1772, was daughter of Robert Wilmot, house-painter of Warwick, who afterwards removed to London, and of Anna Maria, his wife. She was baptised on 15 April 1772 at St. Nicholas Church, Warwick. Much of her early life was spent at the house of her bachelor uncle, Dr. James Wilmot, a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and rector of Barton-on-Heath, Warwickshire. When she was seventeen she received lessons in drawing at her father's house in London from John Thomas Serres [q. v.], marine-painter. On 17 Sept. 1791 she married her teacher at Barton-on-Heath, her uncle, Dr. Wilmot, officiating. She was under age, and was married by special license, her father, Robert Wilmot, making an affidavit that he was her natural and lawful father and consented to her marriage. The marriage proved unhappy, and in 1804 a separation was arranged.

Afterwards she occupied herself with painting, and gave lessons in art. She exhibited landscapes at the Royal Academy in 1794, and from 1804 to 1808, and at the British Institution in 1806. Obtaining an introduction to some members of the royal family, she was in 1806 appointed landscape-painter to the Prince of Wales. In 1809 she began an incoherent correspondence with him, offering to lend him 20,000l. at the same time as she begged for pecuniary assistance. She likewise tried her hand at literature, publishing ‘St. Julian,’ a novel, in 1805; ‘Flights of Fancy: Poems,’ in 1806; and subsequently ‘Olivia's Letters to her Daughters,’ and ‘St. Athanasius's Creed explained for the Advantage of Youth,’ 1814.

Meanwhile her uncle, Dr. Wilmot, died in 1808, leaving his money to his brother for his life, and afterwards in equal shares to his niece Olive and her brother. In 1813 Mrs. Serres published a memoir of her uncle, as ‘The Life of the Author of Junius's Letters, the Rev. James Wilmot, D.D.’ She represented him as a person of political and social influence, and, on obviously absurd grounds, asserted that he wrote the letters of Junius (cf. Gent. Mag. 1813 ii. 99, 413, 545, and 1814 i. passim). Four years later—in 1817—in another pamphlet, entitled ‘Junius, Sir Philip